


Narrative Continuity

by eponymous_rose



Category: Doctor Who, Legend (TV)
Genre: 1000-3000 words, 19th Century, Action/Adventure, Banter, Canon - TV, Character of Color, Crossover, Gen, Humor, Mad Science, POV Third Person, Science Fiction, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/pseuds/eponymous_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha and the Doctor make an unscheduled stop in Sheridan, Colorado, 1876. Ernest Pratt, coincidentally, is having a very strange day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narrative Continuity

Ernest Pratt, alias Nicodemus Legend, was no stranger to the odd, the unusual, the bizarre. He'd faced down mechanical fire-breathing bulls. He'd flown through the air on any number of extraordinary conveyances. He'd shot electricity from his hands. He'd been the first to eat an egg boiled using the Bartok Electrical Ovum Bubbler, which feat, according to Janos, put all of Ernest's other piddling accomplishments to shame.

But even according to his standards, even in the face of his particularly jaded palate when it came to the peculiar, this was shaping up to be the strangest day of Ernest's life.

"Oh, this is brilliant! But, well, I couldn't help noticing that, well." The man who'd introduced himself as the Doctor leaned forward, pointing to a particularly dramatic flicker of electrical current. This in itself, Ernest supposed, was somewhat out of the ordinary, seeing as how most people refrained from exposing their extremities within reach of one of Janos Bartok's experiments. "Just what is it you're trying to do, here?"

Seeing the gleam in Janos's eyes, Ernest made his patented don't-encourage-him flailing arm gesture. He'd always assumed it to be unambiguous, but the Doctor, looking perplexed, merely waved, and then Janos was off on a particularly incomprehensible lecture to do with condensation nuclei, silver iodide, and what sounded like nimbulocumulostrato-somethings. The whole speech made Ernest resolve never to write about this particular part of Janos's research, if only to spare his readers the unwanted nap.

But the Doctor just nodded, and asked a question that was either unspeakably brilliant or unspeakably moronic, because it managed to stop Janos right in his tracks for all of two seconds before the debate began.

"Oh, don't tell me someone got him started," said the other person who'd emerged from the weird blue box that morning, an enchantingly pretty young woman who seemed marginally more sane than her companion. "He should come with a warning label."

Ernest turned on the winning smile his publicist was always trying to squeeze out of him. "I suppose we could pass the time by any number of-"

Martha was looking at him with a peculiar mix of resignation and amusement. "Oh, not this again. You're not half as charming as you think you are, no matter how much the Doctor loves your books. I mean, he's such a fan. I've never even heard of you."

"Really?" Ernest covered his disappointment with an expression that he decided to narrate internally as 'manfully pouting'. "I could have sworn my British sales were on the rise."

"Among other things," said Martha, and Ernest found himself in the grips of an extremely coincidental coughing fit. "And they're not on the rise in my century, anyway." She glanced over at Janos and the Doctor, who had bent over one of the more elaborate apparatuses in order to better illustrate their growing shouting match. "I wouldn't say no to a platonic conversation, though."

"Platonic," Ernest said, as though testing out the word, and sighed. "That Plato has a lot to answer for, if you ask me."

"I didn't," Martha said, but consented to link her arm in his as they left Janos and the Doctor to their argument.

It should have been a beautiful day, with sun shining and birds trilling and all manner of cheerful, outdoorsy features to set the mood. Instead, it was blandly overcast, with the low clouds that usually promised rain a bit further east. It was as though the weather, tired of competing with Janos's dramatics, had blanketed the whole world with a petulant sigh.

Martha was walking in silence, looking particularly thoughtful, so Ernest risked patting her arm in the guise of getting her attention. "Platonic weather we've been having, eh?"

She grinned. "Nice. Subtle."

"Oh, come on. This is new ground for me. Give me a chance to get my bearings." Ernest made a show of squinting around at the horizon, which stretched out on all sides like the world had been made flat, then hammered still flatter. It was one of the more boring vistas the area had to offer. "Ah, yes. Here we are. Platonic. What a lovely day it is to be platonic."

She laughed at that, pulling her arm free. "You're a hopeless case."

Ernest shrugged. "Hopeless. Hapless. Often helpless."

There was an ominous bang from Janos's workshop behind them, and they turned in unison – it took Ernest a moment to realize that they were wearing identical expressions of mild concern that was rapidly becoming overlaid with resignation.

"It is not meant to do that, Doctor! I wish you wouldn't-"

"Well, no, of course not, but this is brilliant!"

Ernest raised an eyebrow, and Martha did the same. "Interesting friend you've got there," he said.

"I was going to say the same to you."

They began walking again, and Ernest found himself stepping gingerly along a previously burned-out path of grass as though it were a high-wire. "If you don't mind my asking, just how did you wind up travelling with that Doctor of yours?"

"Long story," Martha said, much too quickly. "Also a bit on the nonlinear side. And how about you and that Bartok of yours?"

"Oh, you know. He appropriated my good name when he decided to start changing the course of a river and whatnot." Ernest waved a hand dismissively, but he was a little disappointed at Martha's lack of reaction. "That sort of thing."

In fact, Martha seemed to be paying him even less attention than usual, looking down at a strange contraption on her wrist. Ernest's eyes narrowed: it seemed to have numbers printed on it that were _moving_. "Okay. The Doctor's running a bit behind schedule, but I think we might have some timeline-fixing to do in the immediate future, so this is the part where I have to tell you a thing or two."

Ernest blinked. "What?"

"Right," said Martha, and held up a finger. "One. If you don't want to help us out on this particular adventure, everything that's about to happen is completely false. Totally made up. I can recommend a few utterly meaningless explanations, but the best tactic is generally to let yourself rationalize the whole thing, because the Doctor's always saying how good we humans are at that."

Ernest blinked again. Emphatically. "What?"

Martha held up a second finger. "Two. If you do want to help us out, the first rule is this: don't die. The Doctor's very partial to your books, and he's had enough angst to go around lately. Apart from that, things will go much faster if you ignore all I just said and get straight to the point where you believe everything implicitly. It saves a lot of exposition."

Ernest gave up on blinking in favor of windmilling his arms. "_What?_"

"You say that a lot," said Martha, and paused. "It's disconcertingly familiar."

"Okay," said Ernest, and took a deep breath. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you and your Doctor friend are completely mad."

"Right," said Martha. "Don't take this the wrong way, but we have a tendency to seek out people with a similar grasp on reality." She patted his shoulder. "Don't worry; you'll do fine."

"Do fine? Just what is it I'm supposed to be doing?"

There was a shriek of metal, followed by a more organic shriek that had a Janos-esque timbre to it. After a particularly ominous silence, the doors to the workshop flew open to eject Janos and the Doctor, both running as though their lives depended on it.

"Martha!" The Doctor was holding a chunk of machinery that wouldn't have been out of place in Bartok's laboratory, and it was emitting a series of distressing noises. "Martha, they're here!"

Ernest turned to Martha. "What's here? Who's here?"

"Aliens," Martha said, brightly. "Or, if you chose option number one, swamp gas."

A nearby explosion of blue-green fire sent wads of dirt tumbling around them, and they all dived for cover behind the water trough. Ernest squinted into the dust at a wavering figure that was suddenly illuminated by another blue-green blast. "That swamp gas seems particularly well-armed."

"Welcome to my world," said Martha.

Much later, when Faber approached him about those missing weeks, nosing around for another dime thriller-worthy story, Ernest claimed he and Janos had merely gone for a health-restoring holiday in more temperate climes.

Janos raised an eyebrow when Faber finally left, publicity-hounding tail between his legs. "Nicodemus Legend has taken to stretching the truth, I see."

"Oh, I did nothing of the sort," Ernest said. "We did go on a health-restoring holiday, right?"

"Ernest-"

"In more temperate climes, yes?"

Janos's stern expression was starting to break into a smile. "Ernest, that's not-"

Ernest raised his hands in the air, adopting an expression of pure, unadulterated innocence. "Is it my fault that he never asked which planet housed those more temperature climes?"

Janos rolled his eyes, but he was definitely smiling now. "You're incorrigible, Ernest."

"No sense trying to improve on perfection," Ernest said, with a flourish.

And neither of them ever mentioned the scribbled manuscript that lived beneath Ernest's bed, a fantastically fictional flight of fancy featuring a certain man and woman from parts unknown who travelled time and space and everything in between, embarking on amazing adventures along the way.


End file.
